The “prioritize popular things” school doesn’t account for issues like court expansion and impeachment where public opinion follows elites. If Dems unify, it’ll become a 50-50 issue. If they let polls determine their position it’ll remain underwater and democracy will collapse.
This phenomenon is a bigger general problem in the context of McConnell’s strategy of reflexively denying the opposition votes for bills. His insight: unify the opposition and the governing party, obsessed with finding bipartisan cover, will splinter.
If Dems approach governing that way again, they won’t just leave themselves and the country at the mercy of illegitimate Republican courts. They’ll find that even the popular aspects of their agenda will lose popularity, and they’ll accomplish much less than they otherwise would.
A case in point. Republicans shamelessly unify around racing to confirm a SCOTUS nominee amid the election–an unpopular idea. GOP voters line up behind them 86-8. Democrats get it in their heads that full bore opposition is unpopular. Dem voters only OPPOSE the ACB push 67-13.
Cowed by an unscrupulous opposition into not doing much opposition at all, an unpopular objective now takes the lead.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Brian Beutler

Brian Beutler Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @brianbeutler

13 Oct
All respect to Dan, but the bar for “right” here shouldn’t be set at “Trump attempts procedural coup and fails,” or “Dem landslide buries Trump’s election stealing ambitions.” Both of these standards are actually testaments to how far we’ve slipped.
The first normalizes shocking abuse on the grounds that it’s unlikely to work out the way Trump wants, the second creates the unacceptable expectation that the liberal party needs to win landslides to claim power uncontested. This is a broken discourse.
Trump could lose by 10, rendering him unable to steal the election in court, but then turn around and fan (more) street violence and sabotage the transition, and under the incompetence standard this would just stand as evidence that the hysterical libs worried too much. Really!?
Read 6 tweets
13 Oct
My position has been: 1) no rescue that doesn’t include election protection, 2) no stimulus that isn’t tied to conditions and thus of equal benefit no matter who’s POTUS, 3) no paltry GOP stimulus devised to expire before Jan. A thread on why 1.8T (structured right) is worth it.
The window for 1 has closed completely, reflecting big strategic errors by Dem leadership. The window for 2 is also closed at least for now, reflecting similar errors and failure of imagination.
But it’s so late now that 3 is also no longer a concern. 1.8T in late October–again, structured right–really will span administrations and come too late to radically alter the trajectory of the election.
Read 9 tweets
11 Oct
We have not advanced nearly far enough toward not pretending to believe Republicans when they pretend to care about stuff they manifestly don’t have any principled view about.
After four years of bullshit, I personally wonder where to find all the stories about Biden voters in Biden country who don’t care about his contingent views on expanding the judiciary.
The story is that Republicans invented a slander to deflect legitimate concerns about the nominee they’ve chosen to cement illegitimate control over the court. But to tell it you have to be willing not to pretend to believe Republicans when they pretend to be mad about stuff.
Read 4 tweets
10 Oct
Hoarse from screaming: if he waits until the court shows its true colors it‘ll be too late.

There are elections every two years, justices serve for life. If they know Biden will only change his view when they do what they intend, they’ll wait til he loses concurrent majorities.
Judges aren’t senators, courts are not legislatures. If right-wing judges, with lifetime appointments, believe Biden will refrain from court packing until the court acts abusively, the court will wait until he lacks concurrent majorities to act abusively.
Read 4 tweets
9 Oct
It’s too long to screen grab, but the short version is @mattyglesias is wrong and I’m right. mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…
There's another facet to this argument that I didn't have space to get into, but it's about a different lesson from 2009-2010 that many people have somehow forgotten.
It's common to shorthand that stretch as the period where Democrats had a historic 60 vote supermajority. But what really happened is they had fewer than 60 votes, then they had 60, then they didn't again. And the reason It worked out that way is that an elderly senator died.
Read 6 tweets
8 Oct
Yup, as noted to a friend last night, they don’t mind lying outrageously about their agendas and their opponents’, so trying to outsmart them by seizing the inoffensive center will often not work out great.
At the first debate in 2012, Obama pointed out that Romney wanted to give rich people a huge tax cut, and Romney just said no that’s not true (it was true) and Obama lost the debate in devastating fashion.
Fortunately he recognized this was a mistake and came prepared in debates two and three to do what the whole point of these things is: make your opponents look small and ridiculous by contrast to your confidence and charm.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!